


As Beautiful As Days Can Be

by Phoebe (Emeraldwoman)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-14
Updated: 2011-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-27 08:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emeraldwoman/pseuds/Phoebe





	As Beautiful As Days Can Be

_My sorrow, when she's here with me,  
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain  
Are as beautiful as days can be _

\- Robert Frost, "My November Guest."

 

Hermione's mother always helps her pack.

It dates back to the time when a nervous ten-year-old couldn't decide what clothes to take to her frightening new school, or which shoes would be the most practical. Selecting books had been unbearable, causing her to burst into anxious tears. At last, her mother had 'helped' her, folding sweaters with her deft, bony hands, settling robes into the bottom of her trunk, tucking sugar-free gum into side pockets. More importantly, she had talked the whole time: steady, cheerful chatter in the same tone she used to calm patients who feared the drill. Hermione prides herself on her memory, but she can not remember what her mother said. Only that it was soothing, and calm, and full of quiet pride. Better than any anaesthetic, her mother's voice had eased away the tight pain in her stomach.

The next year, Hermione had lost her favourite pair of jeans and panicked. They had been tattered, and perhaps one of her parents had discarded them. She discovered them in her mother's hand, inexpertly mended, and her mother had once again, helped her pack. This time, they had both talked, and they had discovered that they liked it.

Hermione is turning seventeen in a few days, and she is no longer anxious about what to take to Hogwarts. But this is now tradition, and this time the ritual is especially imbued with significance. Though neither mentions it, they are both very aware that it is the last time it will be enacted. Crookshanks wanders in and out of the room, occasionally choosing the most inconvenient place possible to take a brief nap. They both stroke him often.

Perhaps it is the poignancy of this moment; perhaps it is the nostalgia of the other memories weighing on her. Perhaps it is something else. Either way, Hermione does not know these words will come out of her mouth until she has said them: "Mum," she asks, "How did you know you were in love with dad?"

Her mother's hands still, hide in the folds of Hermione's red and golden scarf. "I just knew," she says, matter-of-factly. "I had known your father for a few months, and liked him very much, and one day‚Ä¶" She laughs, self-consciously. "It sounds so silly and trite."

"Tell me," Hermione urges.

"Well, it sounds silly but it really happened. This great, warm feeling came up inside me, and I knew I loved him. It was quite a shock at the time. After that I decided that I would do anything to be with him."

"And did he feel the same way?" Hermione asks, fascinated, trying to imagine her mother, the earnest newcomer to the clinic, and her father, the debonair junior. It is too much for her imagination. Parents are not meant to be lovers.

Hermione's mother smiles, small and secret. Hermione has seen that smile in the mirror, but never on her mother's face, and it startles her.

"Oh no," she replies lightly. "He didn't think of me that way for a long time. In fact, he was with another girl. One of the dental nurses." She smiles again. "But I got through to him soon enough." She laughs, self-consciously. "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but for a few weeks, I was the other woman."

"No!" Hermione gasps, unwillingly impressed. Her tall and gawky mother, a seductress. It is completely impossible.

"Oh, yes. I was terrified that I was a fling. Every second I was afraid he'd go back to her. We were very secretive and tortured and had long, anguished conversations about what we should do. It was heart-breaking, and nerve-breaking, and really rather thrilling, all at once." She glances at Hermione. "Not that I recommend you try it," she adds, and for a moment, the smile of the secret lover retreats and she is all mother again.

"Of course not," Hermione says impatiently. "But what happened?"

"Well, obviously, it all worked out," her mother smiles. "We eventually got married, and five years later-" she nods at Hermione "- we had a beautiful baby girl." Your father's ex-girlfriend actually came to the wedding, it was all very civilised. Though she didn't stay for the reception, I noticed."

"There must have been more to it than that."

"Yes," her mother says, firmly. "But you don't need to know about it."

Chastened, Hermione nods, and begins organising her toilet bag, hoping to avoid the question that is inevitably zooming towards her. She has just zipped up the shampoo pocket when it arrives.

"Why do you ask, dear?" her mother asks, and Hermione is planning to bat it away with an 'Oh, nothing', but her mother produces a follow-up question that she hadn't anticipated. "Is that how you feel about Viktor? That" - she laughs, floats her hand in the air - "er‚Ä¶ golden, warm feeling?" The question is perfectly casual, even self-deprecating, and Hermione is too surprised to be anything but honest.

"No!" she says, astonished, and hears disbelief ring humiliatingly clear in her voice.

There is a brief, disappointed pause, then: "Oh," her mother says, and places the scarf in the suitcase. "Is it Ron, then? Or Harry?" Second choices, her voice implies, but not necessarily disappointing.

"I don't feel that way about anyone, Mum," Hermione says. She is clearly telling the truth, and her mother nods and reaches for the underwear pile. Hermione is stricken with guilt, and not for the first time.

Hermione is guilty, because her mother believes what she has said to be the whole of the truth.

What Hermione feels is neither warm nor golden. It is a hot, dark thing, a black flame that twists inside her. It sometimes subsides to banked embers, sometimes flares up at unexpected moments. All through the summer - sometimes in the day, often in the night - she has remembered sharp cheekbones beneath her splayed fingers, a dry voice stoked to urgent whispered exhortations in the dark by her tongue and touch. She remembers blond hair, unbearably soft, brushing over her breasts. She remembers urgent, frenzied thrusting, and slower, taunting motions designed to make her plead. She remembers this because, for now, memory is all she has.

She is almost certain that this is not love.

Her mother is frowning out the window at the steel grey sky, the leaves that are already beginning to curl and brown on the trees. "It's been such a short summer this year," she sighs wistfully.

Hermione says nothing. No summer has ever been longer.

* * * * *

They meet on the platform, and it is awkward. Awkward smiles, an awkward one-armed hug, careful of the protesting Crookshanks in his cat cage. He pats her back when he releases her, as he would a boy. This is a mate hug, Hermione realises, and she is both pleased and disappointed.

"Where's Harry?" she asks.

Ron shrugs. "Getting last instructions from Mad-Eye, I think."

She sees him at the end of the platform, walking slowly towards them from the secret wall. "He looks older," she says, startled.

Ron eyes her, then him. "Yeah?"

"Yes," Hermione replies absently, because she is trying to work out why she is right. Harry's hair and eyes and glasses and scar are all there. He hasn't grown much over the summer. He will never be tall, though he will always be just a little taller than her. As he gets closer, she sees the bleakness in his eyes, even under his pleasure at seeing her, and she wonders if that's it. But she has seen him bleak before, and it doesn't account for this sudden recognition of adulthood.

She watches him walk, and thinks, _of course_. Harry does not dart awkwardly around human obstacles, adult or child. They part for him, and he does not see. He is bleak, and sad, and he walks unhindered through crowds, bearing his open wounds as forgotten scars.

When he hugs her, she is crying a little, grieving for what he's lost. For what they've both lost.

"Come on, we'll miss the train," Ron says impatiently, and she is suddenly so grateful for Ron's unchanging innocence that she kisses him on the cheek.

This is a mistake. Parvati Patil appears from nowhere and grasps Ron's hand. "Come on, Ron," she says brightly. "We've got so much to catch up on!" Her eyes glitter at Hermione, who keeps her face very still.

"Have a good time," she says blandly.

"Oh, we _will_ ", Parvati assures her, and with a shame-faced grin at his friends, Ron allows himself to be dragged away and onto the train.

From behind her, a voice says "Potter, Granger," and her thoughts are no longer of innocence.

Harry tenses even as she turns. "Malfoy," he says.

Draco Malfoy has grown. He looks down on both of them. "Nice day," he says pleasantly, and Harry tenses further. Whatever he has learned over the summer, he has not learned how to play this game. Hermione has seen Draco's constant, unrelenting civility batter Harry to breaking point, and she will not watch it again.

"No day with you in it is nice, Malfoy," Hermione says, and Harry laughs, relaxes a little.

Draco's lazy smile sends shocks down her spine. "Just being polite," he says, but he accepts her warning for what it is and turns away again. With Harry obvious and angry beside her, it is safe to watch him go. He is all long lines and gracious strides, and if his own wounds pain him, the hurt is hidden.

Hermione's thighs clutch, unbidden, as the hot darkness rises within her.

"Wanker," Harry mutters contemptuously. "Let's go."

* * * * *

On the train they find and claim an empty carriage, and Hermione lets her cat out of his cage. He sniffs huffily at her, squashed nose upturned.

"Do you have to go to the prefect's carriage?" Harry asks.

Hermione fingers the Head Girl badge pinned to her robe and nods self-consciously. "I wish it was you, Harry," she says.

"I don't mind," Harry says, and his eyes are clear and honest. "I need to concentrate on Quidditch this year, anyway."

Hermione doesn't like things she doesn't understand, and though the obsession of the men in her life with a ridiculous game is the least of those things, it still irks her. Still, they have just met after months apart, and so she says nothing.

"I wish it was Ron," Harry adds, and she bites her tongue at that too. Ron as Head Boy would be an unmitigated disaster, no matter how desperately his mother pushed for it.

"I think Anthony will be quite good," she says diplomatically. Then, "Make sure Crookshanks doesn't get out of the carriage. I'll be back straight after the meeting."

At the time, she even means it.

But on the way back, she sees Draco through the door of his carriage. He is alone and instantly aware of her gaze, meeting her eyes through the smeared glass. Afterwards, she does not remember stepping through the door, or locking it behind her, or closing the curtains over the treacherous pane of glass, though when she goes over this later in her head, she knows these things must have happened. It disturbs her that even the part of herself that always stands outside, always records, was momentarily disrupted.

At the time, all she can do is rush at him as he stands to meet her kiss. Their mouths meet so hard it hurts, hands grasping desperately at each other, clutching her to him and him to her, and only then is the long summer over.

He tears his head back, something wild and wary in his eyes. "Granger-" he starts, but she growls in impatience and kisses him again and the words are lost.

The train rocks and they stumble, still bound up in each other, half-fall, half-settle onto the worn seats. She is lying half-across his lap, and she pushes herself up enough so that she can get one knee either side of his waist. She grinds against him; a wanting dance. His hands on her hips help guide her motion, his mouth urgent upon her throat, and she moans then, cannot help it. From the very beginning, she has always made sounds for him. She has almost given up trying to suppress them.

Almost.

They have, in the past, spent hours on foreplay, competing with each other, seeing who would break first. Today, they do not wait. She wears a skirt - coincidence, of course, it has to be - and it is the work of a moment to hitch her panties down. Getting his belt off takes more time, and impatience makes them both clumsy, their fingers fumbling. But at last it is done, and she takes him inside her with a groan she expels into his mouth, a groan he meets with his own as she places her hands on the wall above his head and meets his rising hips with hers.

It's awkward, this position. The constant motion of the train makes it hard for them to find a steady rhythm, and more than once she nearly tumbles sideways. But he holds her waist steady with one arm and snakes the other hand between them, rubbing the little nub of flesh with practiced strokes until she yelps and writhes at the shaking warmth that washes over her. With her on top, her thighs spread over his, he can get deep inside her, and she sees his pupils dilate just before his eyes slam shut and his back arches, stifling his shouts against her shoulder.

She kisses him, then, and he strokes her hair back with one hand, the other still wrapped about her waist. In the languid aftermath of sex, they allow themselves certain liberties.

"I have to tell you something, Granger," he says abruptly.

She glances at her watch and curses, rolls off him, reaches for her panties. "You've got about thirty seconds," she replies, and starts wrestling with her hair.

"It'll take longer," Draco says, and she looks at him, curious.

Sometimes Draco tells her things, afterwards. Snippets gleaned from Slytherin common room gossip, warnings that are often an indication of some new move by the enemy. Sometimes what he says is unknown to her side. More often it is not. Draco's father is imprisoned; his mother is inactive. He is not important enough to be entrusted with secrets. Still, as Hermione has cause to know, it's truly incredible what people will say in front of those they consider their inferiors. It's amazing how important little things can be.

They pretend that this is just pillow talk, because although the thought of them conversing is frightening, what they are actually doing is even more so. She never thanks him, and he never asks for anything in return. That might make him a traitor, and her a spy.

There are so many things they cannot put words around, for fear of what the words might make real.

She tells only Dumbledore what she learns. She does not tell him how she learns it, and he does not ask, which makes her suspect he already knows. She has other, darker suspicions. Suspicions like, _who decided we should patrol the school?_ Like, _who put the patrolling pairs together?_

She cannot voice these thoughts, even to herself. Even with her recent experience of Dumbledore's foresight, his careful and complete planning, she cannot take paranoia that far. It would be madness, anyway, an unthinkably slim chance that two children who hated each other, forced together in the dark of Hogwarts' endless passageways, might approach, if not understanding, something close kin to it. Might fight and fuck in that darkness. That one might, eventually, tell the other things; little things that can be very important.

It is, she tells herself, unthinkable.

Nevertheless, with Draco looking at her that way, his eyes guarded, his mouth set, she thinks about it.

She does not want to hear what he has to say, not then. She wants to remain, just for now, lover and lover, not any of the myriad other roles circumstance and inclination demand of herself and Draco.

So she says, "I don't have time."

He doesn't argue, which is a bad sign. It indicates that, whatever this is, it's something he doesn't really want to tell her. Which potentially means it's valuable. She wavers, uncertain, but he is reknotting his tie and moving for the door.

"The pumpkin patch," he tells her, glancing around the curtain, barely waiting for her answering nod before he slips out.

Hermione waits a long, slow count of twenty before she also leaves, walking in the opposite direction.

Harry looks up from his Quidditch magazine when she enters, face quizzical. "Anthony Goldstein was here," he reports. "He said he thought of some things to discuss with you after the meeting."

Six months ago, this might have phased her. She might even have blushed. Now, Hermione is practiced in the arts of deception.

She laughs. It even sounds genuine, and that's hard, making forced laughter sound sincere. She is proud of herself, then upset for being proud. None of this shows in her voice. "That's funny," she says lightly. "I thought exactly the same thing. I suppose we were looking in the wrong places."

"Okay," Harry says, and she can see he has already lost interest.

Crookshanks sniffs suspiciously at her fingers, then curls up in the corner, ostentatiously washing himself. She's always wondered about how much Crookshanks knows. Fortunately, she can count on him to keep his own counsel.

"Tell me about your summer," she says, and sits back as he tells her about Auror training with Lupin and Mad-Eye Moody, about Occlumency lessons with Dumbledore. To her surprise, she likes listening to it, mostly because Harry's own pleasure is so evident.

Harry is learning how to be a weapon, but at least he's enjoying himself.

* * * * *

Settling in the students takes more time than she'd anticipated, Hermione finds. The Sorting Hat selects only three students for Gryffindor, two girls and a boy. Ravenclaw gets six, Hufflepuff nine. Slytherin gets one, a handsome, dark-haired girl who doesn't look enthused by the choice.

By the time the new students are settled in, and she and Anthony have met with Dumbledore, it is far too late. If Draco had managed to escape his own, not particularly onerous, responsibilities and get to the pumpkin patch, he would have left by now. Hermione sighs, and begins to unpack, Crookshanks purring contentedly on her pillow.

They have a few places, hidden around the school. They discovered an alcove on the third floor, a cramped cupboard near the Great Hall. Draco has a single room, but the challenge of getting into the Slytherin dungeon unremarked is, at best, difficult to overcome. She, once, desperate for need of him, hurried him into the Room of Requirement, which rose to the occasion by providing a king-sized bed, complete with feather mattress. It had been bliss; no bruises on bodies ground too hard into stone floors, no cramped limbs trembling from the effort to stay standing.

But it had also been appallingly risky. The Room of Requirement, as both of them know, will not protect agaisnt intruders who require that those inside be found. Even at night, Hogwarts has its walkers. Harry could be anywhere, hidden under that cloak of his.

And, she thinks, in very dark moments, who knows what methods Hogwarts' Headmaster uses to keep such a close eye on his charges?

And so, the vegetable garden, the pumpkin patch, at the very rear of the grounds, on the edge of the Forest. It's never visited by the students, since most of them are unaware it exists. It's rarely visited at all, in fact, now that Hagrid is too busy with other duties to be as conscientious with the grounds as once he was.

But she and Draco have visited it, often. The soil is soft, and smells sharp and clean. He brought blankets one night, holding them out to her in that familiar way that dares her to take this gesture, any gesture, as significant. When they were done, she transfigured them into a rock, stark and grey against the rich loam, and knew that the same expression was on her face.

Hermione hangs up skirts and folds jeans and sweaters into the drawers under her bed and pretends to listen to Lavender chatter about her summer in Greece and thinks about the way Draco's skin looks under dirt. Like the moon through thick cloud.

"Hermione!" Lavender says suddenly, looking scandalised. "What are those?"

She is pointing into Hermione's suitcase, at the cellophane-wrapped box Hermione has just exposed by pulling out her dressing gown.

"Ah," Hermione says blankly, staring at the condoms. "Um. Muggle contraceptives." She picks up the box and gingerly inspects it, then glances at Lavender, whose mouth is open in a fascinated O. "My mother must have put them there," she says weakly.

This is true. But she is absolutely certain Lavender will not believe her. It is impossible she can guess the truth, she assures herself. Risks or not, they have been careful. No one can know.

"Oh, of course," Lavender nods, and then she slides off her bed and kneels beside Hermione. "Is it Anthony Goldstein?" she asks eagerly.

"What?" Hermione blurts, and Lavender takes her mingled shock and relief as guilt.

"It is!" Lavender crows. "Oh, I knew it. He's liked you for ages! And now you're Head Boy and Head Girl! Oh, it's so perfect!"

Hermione stares at her. "‚Ä¶ where did you come up with this ridiculous notion?" she asks. She is completely at a loss, and it is an unfamiliar and unpleasant feeling.

"I heard him talking to Terry Boot about you once," Lavender says comfortably. "And he saw me and swore me to secrecy, but since you're" - she giggles - "doing _it_ , I don't suppose it matters now."

"No," Hermione says faintly. "I don't suppose it does." Lavender squeals and giggles, and she has time to think, a little, time to remember the card Anthony sent her to congratulate her on her Head Girl notification letter, time to remember his praise for a particulary effacacious Charm, his eagerness, oh God, to join the DA, which she'd attributed to Ginny's influence on Michael. Time to remember that he came looking for her on the train.

She thinks, _Sorry_. She thinks _No one must know._

She takes a deep breath. "Don't tell anyone, will you, Lav?" she asks, her eyes wide and imploring. "It's just all so‚Ä¶ new." She points at the condoms. "I mean. I haven't. I. Um." She even manages to blush, a little. Her own duplicity sickens her.

"If you want me to keep it a secret, I will," Lavender promises heroically. She hesitates. "Can I tell Parvati?" she asks. "It would make her‚Ä¶ well, you know."

Hermione does know. "All right," she agrees. "But make sure she knows not to tell Ron. He doesn't like Anthony." Fortunately, this is true, and something Lavender knows to be true. Lies always go down easier when coated in truth.

Lavender swallows it whole, and Hermione envies her with a deep, painful ache. "Of course," she nods. "Leave it up to me. We won't tell a soul."

They won't, either, Hermione knows. Lavender and Parvati will keep their word.

After all, they're Gryffindors.

Uncertain of what to do with the condoms, she tears the shiny wrapping off the box, and gives it to Crookshanks to bat around. She tips the condoms themselves into her underwear drawer and throws away the empty box. She should have thrown it all away, really, but Lavender had been watching, and they were a gift, however strange, from her mother. Her mother, who listened to her ask questions about love, and heard her replies, and packed these.

Her mother, who had been the other woman, once. A woman who was a lover, as well as a parent.

It is easier, now, to believe.

The next night she slips down to the pumpkin patch when it is dark. Growth unchoked by Hagrid's rigid gardening, the pumpkins are huge. So, too, are the weeds. They cluster around the pumpkins in a tangled web of creeping life, already browning. She crouches down behind the largest pumpkin and huddles under her coat.

She waits for him, late.

When the moon rises through the faded wisps of cloud, she decides he will not come. He must have been delayed. It is common, and nothing for her to worry about. She gnaws at a thumbnail, and worries nonetheless. She should have had him tell her on the train.

Lavender and Parvati don't ask her where she's been. This is not new; many evenings she has returned to her room late, and they have assumed she was studying, or doing something with Harry and Ron. What is new is the look they give her, the sly, darting glance from under their eyelashes, their approving smiles. Parvati's smile is particularly wide.

She goes to bed, Crookshanks curled around her knees. His warm weight is no comfort to her.

She thinks about it all day, watching the back of his neck in Potions, catching a quick glance in her direction as she walks to Arithmancy. Her thumbnail is much abused. She needs to know what he has to say. She needs to know.

So she takes a chance, and manages to catch his eye at dinner. She doesn't nod, or gesture, just looks into those pale grey eyes across the hall, and sees that she has been understood.

"I wish that wanker Malfoy would stop looking at me," Harry grumbles from his seat beside her, and she nearly laughs.

"I need to do some Arithmancy research," she says, and stands up.

"No dinner?" Harry asks.

She shakes her head and grabs a slice of bread. "If they have any of those little chocolate cakes for dessert-"

"I'll save you one," he promises absently, and turns to discuss Quidditch strategy with Seamus.

She can't help smiling fondly at him for a moment. Then she clutches her bread and hurries out of the hall and down the steps, taking the familiar route to the pumpkin patch. She should have said Potions, she berates herself. Then, if caught, she could say she was collecting ingredients. The day is dimming, the evening comes, but it is still light, far too light, and there is no fog off the lake. She could be seen.

As far as she can tell, she isn't. She ducks into the pumpkin patch and waits, nibbling at her bread. When Draco appears out of the greying light, she stands up, confident they can't be seen this far.

"Hello," she says, and walks towards him, head upturned for a kiss.

He kisses her, soft and wanting. For a moment, it distracts her from the gnawing worry in her stomach.

But instead of tugging her down into the fresh, rich soil, he takes her hand and tugs her towards the forest. "Come on," he says, and his voice is so soft that she is afraid.

They retreat into the trees, keeping to the fringes of the forest, until they are completely hidden, the school lost behind the barrier of branches. The leaves are already transforming, taking on the hectic, glorious colours that herald their deaths. She can tell from the set of his shoulders that he will tell her his information before they touch. She shudders to think of what it might be, of the enormity this change indicates. A planned attack of which he got word, a plot within the school itself, perhaps.

She does not have to wait long. As soon as they are well concealed, he swings around, hands balled in his pockets against the early chill.

"I'm engaged," he says, and the world goes cold.

She goes numb with the shock of it, thinks, over and over, _stupid, stupid, stupid. I'm so stupid._ It was never politics, what Draco had to tell her. It wasn't strategy, or secrets, and much as she had dreaded either, she now desperately wants this to be both. That was business, and distasteful as it was, she knew what to do. This is personal, and she doesn't.

"Who?" she asks, idiotically, as if this was important. "Pansy?"

He snorts derisively, and she discovers that actually, it was important, because she is ever so slightly relieved. "No," he says shortly. "Someone you don't know. A girl from Romania."

"Do you‚Ä¶ do you‚Ä¶" She can't say it. It's not a word the language they share can include. Her face is numb. Her lips move as if they don't belong to her.

"No," he says.

"Then why?" she asks, and her voice is steadier. If he doesn't feel‚Ä¶ anything‚Ä¶ for this girl, whoever she is, it might be all right.

"It's for the family," Draco says flatly. "I have to carry on the family line. My mother arranged it. I've never met her." He shrugs; looks over her shoulder. "My mother thinks a spring wedding will be nice," he says, his voice dead.

It will not, then, be all right.

"Tell her no," she says, and the welcome anger is finally there, the feeling coming back to her face.

"I can't," Draco says, not angry, but weary.

"Of course you can!" she shouts, and she knows that's why they've gone into the forest, to muffle the sound. That he knows her this well, that he prepared this, gives her more fury. "You have the choice!"

Anger flashes into his own face. "I don't!" Draco shouts, and steps towards her, his body tense. "I don't have the luxury of your choices, Granger!"

"Your family, your fucking precious _family_ : torturers and murderers and-"

"Shut up!" he snaps, but she can't, the venom pure and shocking in its force.

"- and your fucking _father_ , that's what this is about. Your mother wouldn't decide this by herself, it's _him_. He-."

"Shut up, Granger!"

"-wants you to get some nice pureblood girl pregnant so she can pop out pureblood Death Eater babies-"

He slaps her, and she takes a deep, gasping breath. He has never struck her, not once. There has been pain between them, now and then, but it is the pain of tight grips and pinned wrists, of fingernails and teeth. This is new, and it hurts, and it sends her out of herself for a moment, so that when she comes back he is gripping her arms, and she is silent.

"You don't understand," he says bitterly. "I don't want this, I don't, but it's what I have to do. My father is sentenced to death, Granger." His lips are white. He's never said that before, maybe not even to himself.

Hermione does not, will not, speak.

"He's sentenced to death. All the money in the world won't delay that sentence forever. I am a Malfoy. I can't be the last Malfoy." He releases her arms. "That's all," he says, and it looks like he's trying to find other words, but he shakes his head. "Just‚Ä¶ that's all," he repeats.

He's right, she doesn't understand, but she takes a deep breath, and then another, and tries to be reasonable. She's always believed in reason.

Although, where Draco is concerned, reason has never played much part in her actions.

"Why now?" she asks, calmer. Reasonable.

Draco's mouth twists. "Better to ensure the succession as soon as possible. Accidents happen in turbulent times." She knows these aren't his words. Lucius Malfoy is speaking through her lover's mouth.

She shudders at the thought of "accidents", and he takes a step back.

"I had to tell you," he says harshly. "You had to know."

She nods. He did. She did.

He looks down, then up. "The babies don't have to be pureblood, though it's better," he says. "It's most important that there are Malfoys after me, that's all. It's‚Ä¶ it's the family."

She blinks, then laughs. She can't help it. "Was that a proposal?" she croaks, voice equal parts amazement and horror.

Draco shrugs, that one-shouldered graceful gesture. She can't read his expression.

She can't even think about it, she who prides herself on her mind. It is too enormous a thought: a series of thoughts; of secrecy broken, of unbreakable bonds, of personal ambitions, of their conflicting notions of _family_ , and of the things she cannot put words around.

She cannot answer the question he has not asked. Yes is unthinkable. No is impossible.

But she, Hermione Granger, cannot answer with nothing. She needs to change this, make it somehow familiar, bring it back to what she knows. To what she understands, and so does not fear.

Inspiration strikes.

"Shouldn't you be on your knees?" she asks. Her voice is as dry as the air.

He stares at her, and then he is kneeling at her feet, his hands reaching up for the catch of her jeans, tugging the material down her thighs, panties caught in that downward pressure. She arches her back as he kisses the soft flesh so exposed, inches his way up towards the junction of her thighs.

Even under the trees, there is enough light for her to see his eyes, open and calm. At the first touch of his tongue, seeking, probing, she shudders closes her own eyes, shuts out everything but that sensation.

He knows her very well by now, enough to make her come in moments, if he wants to. He doesn't want to. He takes his time, a long, teasing time until she begs him to finish it, her fingers tangling in his hair with her need, and even then, he delays. When he does, finally, send her over the edge, she screams, a long, ragged scream, and falls into the black flame that devours her.

She comes back to herself half-lying on the ground, half-cradled in his lap. She did really fall, then, at the end. She is sobbing, tearing, harsh sobs that hurt her throat. He says nothing, one hand moving through the unbound mass of her hair.

He has never said it, but he loves her hair.

She has cried in his arms only once before, nearly a year ago.

"Should I go?" he asks her, when her breathing has calmed.

"No," she says, and twists to bring her mouth up to his.

His lips are warm, and slick, and taste a little of her. She sends her hands under his shirt, walks her fingers down the slim lines of his back, and he groans into her mouth. Her hands suddenly grasp at his back and she leans backwards, pulling him down on top of her. They wriggle out of their clothing, all urgent, nipping kisses at throat and collar and shoulder. His hands are quick and rough on her body, and she is fierce, tugging her hands through silky strands of hair. Their movement is frantic, until he slides into her and then they move slow, eyes wide open against the coming night.

Her ankles are locked tight across his surging hips, her hands holding his face. He says her name when he comes.

Afterwards, they lie on the ground together, her back to his front, his arm across her waist, her fingers laced through his. They are silent for a long time, as the light dies.

"I can delay," Draco says quietly, and she tenses against him.

"For how long?" she asks, knowing that any time he gives her will be too soon.

He shifts a shoulder in a shrug that moves his chest against her back. No deadline, then. No date looming.

It's enough.

It has to be.

He helps her to her feet, picks bits of leaves out of her hair. There is no tenderness in his expression, but the gentleness of his hands reveal what his face will not. She leans against him, his warmth a long line down her body.

The evening air starts and flurries around them. The first of autumn's leaves go blazing to their little deaths. For a moment, the place where they are is beautiful beyond what Hermione has words to describe.

It's enough.


End file.
